How Involved Joss Whedon Will Be With The DCEU Moving Forward

Joss Whedon was a valuable asset to the Marvel Cinematic Universe a few years ago when he directed the first two Avengers movies, but now he's joined forces with the studio's competition. Along with writing and directing a Batgirl movie for the DC Extended Universe, it was announced last month that he would be helming Justice League's reshoots following director Zack Snyder's departure. Clearly Warner Bros is taking full advantage of Whedon's talents, and according to DCEU co-head Jon Berg, the Firefly mastermind will continue to be a key collaborator for the DC franchise in the coming years beyond his existing projects. Berg said:

He's a big part already. We love him. He's a great partner, collaborator; we want him to be ensconced. We bring people by, have general meetings and talk about comics and their favorite superhero movies. With Joss, he saw the master board, and he saw a "Batgirl" title and he said, 'You guys seriously want to do 'Batgirl'?' And we said, 'Absolutely.' He said, 'That's my jam.'

For right now, Joss Whedon is officially only attached to Batgirl and the Justice League reshoots, but Jon Berg's comments to Variety suggest he will be an important player as the DCEU moves forward. Looking at his body of work, including The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, he's a good talent to have as part of the DCEU braintrust. Even if he's unavailable for directing a particular movie, Berg, Geoff Johns and the other franchise bigwigs would be wise to keep turning to him for writing or just to bounce ideas off of.

Before Avengers: Age of Ultron, Joss Whedon was best known in the world of comic books for writing the first 24 issues of Astonishing X-Men, but because of his work on TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, he was well-versed in the art of mythology-crafting and world-building. Skills like that are enormous assets for any comic book universe, hence why Marvel snatched him up. In addition to writing and directing the first two Avengers movies, Whedon also directed the post-credits scenes for Thor and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as well as rewrote bits of dialogue for Thor: The Dark World.

After Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon made a clean break from the MCU, leaving Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo to take over on Earth's Mightiest Heroes. A coulee years later, now he's a DC man. While Batgirl may have been the DCEU movie that caught Whedon's eye first, he was also hired during Justice League's post-production to rewrite some additional scenes. When Zack Snyder left the movie to spend more time with his family following his daughter's suicide, Whedon was tasked with overseeing the reshoots. Once those are completed, he'll turn his attention to Batgirl, and if Warner Bros reveals that Whedon will be involved with other DC projects, we'll be sure to let you know.

Batgirl doesn't have a release date assigned yet, but Justice League will hit theaters on November 17.